Second Amendment needs revision

It is so tiresome to face yet another round of the paranoid gun loonies warning that their Second Amendment rights are going to be taken away because of all the recent shootings. We heard how President Barack Obama was going to take our guns away, and that did not happen. It won’t happen this or the next time, either. What is this gun-loving crowd so afraid of that it has to be able to buy any guns made?

While your guns are not going to be taken away, your semi-automatic weapons should be. The Second Amendment was written more than 220 years ago when things were very different. The “arms” in the Second Amendment were single-shot black-powder rifles – a far cry from the semi-automatic weapons used in the recent mass killings in America.

The purpose of it was to allow militias to overtake a tyrannical government. To the best of my knowledge, nobody yet has had to use arms for this purpose in America. And to be able to overthrow the U.S. government, one would have to have an arsenal of weapons that could take out any country in the world. The Second Amendment is an anachronism.

Times have changed, and so should the Second Amendment. It is flawed and no longer fits our society. Gun policy in America has been dictated by blackmail tactics of the National Rifle Association, which has several million members in a country of more than 300 million people. Its holding hostage of reasonable gun-control measures is not democratic nor good for the country.

Here is my crack at a new Second Amendment: “Citizens of the United States have the right to own weapons for sport and self-defense, but such weapons shall not include weapons that can be used for mass murder. Further, the president and Congress have the right to regulate the use and ownership of guns for the common good and benefit of the people.” I am sure this will send all the gun loonies to the store to load up to protect themselves from whatever it is that makes them so fearful.